Stage and Studio

Each week Dmae Roberts talks with performing, literary and media artists from the Portland Metro area as well as around the Northwest. As a two-time Peabody award-winning radio producer and writer, Roberts brings national quality to regional arts scene. Dmae often features her national radio work on Stage and Studio.If you have an event please send an email to stagenstudio@aol.com two months before your event. The earlier the better!

Episode Archive

On November 30th at 11am on Stage & Studio on KBOO 90.7FM , Dmae Roberts presents a half-hour version of Coming Home: Return of the Alutiiq Masks, a one-hour radio documentary that interweaves oral history interviews, Alutiiq music and soundscapes. This full-length documentary originally aired in 2008 on about 188 public radio stations around the country.

Dmae Roberts highlights the Walls of Heritage, Walls of Pride: African American Murals about to open at the Oregon Historical Society. Find out about the long and often overlooked history of African American murals. And in the latter part of the show, Producer Tali Singer has an audio arts piece of a young woman converting to Islam.

How do you interview someone you've admired for decades? Producer Dmae Roberts recently found out when she got to interview legendary author Ursula K. Le Guin for the second time. The author of 40 plus books, Le Guin is a much gifted and prolific writer much loved by fans around the world. And in this half hour Oregon Treasures special on Nov. 2nd at 11am,, Le Guin shares thoughts about her work and the Oregon landscapes that have inspired her.

For National Breast Cancer Awareness month, Stage and Studio presents a half-hour adaptation of The Breast Cancer Monologues. Originally a one-hour collage documentary produced by Dmae Roberts & MediaRites, the show features producers Kate Welch, Miae Kim and Anca Micheti and s actors Olga Sanchez, Caren Graham and Elaine Low.

Host/Producer Dmae Roberts features Olga Sanchez, artistic director of Milagro Theatre, the Northwest's premiere Latino theatre. Learn about their new season and win tickets to several shows during the year. We'll also find out about Sanchez' vision for the theatre and about her career as an actor and director.

The Hillsboro Story with Susan Banyas & David Ornette Cherry. Plus Eugene Ballet

Dmae Roberts features The Hillsboro Storywritten and directed by Susan Banyas with original music by David Ornette Cherry. Banyas has been on a personal, historical and socialogical journey acting as a detective on her childhood experiences during the Civil Rights era.

Audio

Oregon has historically been at the bottom for arts funding, and there's an arts crisis going on throughout Oregon schools. The School & Arts Together initiative aims to provide arts education and access to Portland's school-age children. Dmae Roberts talks with Jessica Jarratt Miller, the executive director of the Creative Advocacy Network (CAN) that has championed a new ballot measure for art education.

The Creative Advocacy Network is sponsoring Ballot Measure 26-146 in November for an arts tax of $35 per Portland wage earner above the federal poverty line. The plan is to raise $12 million a year to hire arts teachers in Portland elementary schools and to give the Regional Arts and Culture Council funding to disperse for arts access to school-age children.

What is the impact for Portland youth? How will the revenue be administered? What's the affect for low-income and retired or fixed-income individuals? What is the challenge in passing this measure at the time of high unemployment and in competition with libraries and school funding measures? And why have we come to this all-time low point with arts education in the schools?

Background: For the last three years, CAN has conducted research on the steep declines of arts education access for Portland's elementary and secondary school age children. What they've found is that in the last five years, Parkrose and Centennial School Districts have cut their art and music teaching staff by half. Portland Public Schools has dropped all arts instruction in 22 schools in just two years.

When compared with other major cities in the country, Portland ranks at an all-time low for arts education. A U.S. Department of Education report in April showed :

28% of all Portland schools provide no arts instruction of any kind including music, drama, dance or visual arts, compared to 3% of schools nationally.

11,596 Portland children attending schools do not have any art, dance, drama, or music instruction.

Jessica Jarratt Miller joined the Creative Advocacy Network with 18 years of experience as a fundraiser and non-profit leader. Through the years, Jessica has structured and grown non-profit organizations, established successful public/private partnerships and launched vital new programs in Oregon, Washington, California and Washington D.C. She has also secured more than $35 million in funding for education, arts and culture, the environment, social services and civil rights.

A special concert on Stage & Studio by Portland Taiko on Tues 11am 9/18 on KBOO 90.7 FM! Host/Producer Dmae Roberts talks with artistic director Michelle Fujii and ensemble artist Toru Watanabe about their new fall concert Making Waves 2012.

Every autumn, Portland Taiko brings out its biggest drums. Making Waves 2012 features the premiere of four new works from four Portland Taiko artists: Dan Chin, Karen Tingey, Toru Watanabe, and Portland Taiko Artistic Director Michelle Fujii Dan Chin’s untitled piece, Karen Tingey’s “Sunny” (working title), Toru Watanabe’s “GozuMezu”, and a collaborative piece by Watanabe and Fujii called “Poking the Stars."

These artists will reveal different inspirations and processes that shape new work in the taiko art form. Tingey’s premier will be an ode to her late mother. Watanabe’s composition takes its name from the legendary guardians of the underworld. Chin debuts his first new work inspired by sounds and rhythms from everyday life.

Hear music from the Northwest's premiere Asian American performing arts group and find out what it takes to create new Taiko pieces. We hear about how Fujii and Watanabe met in Japan. Fujii's also remembers Obo Addy, the famed Ghanian drummer who recently passed away. Plus two live Taiko songs in the studio.

Portland Taiko presents Making Waves 2012. Performances are Saturday September 29th at 8:00 pm and Sunday September 30th at 2:00 pm. All shows are at Lincoln Performance Hall, Portland State University located at 1620 SW Park Ave. Tickets are$15- $25, available through PSU Box Office and Ticketmaster outlets. For more information and for group tickets (10+), call (503) 288-2456 or email info@portlandtaiko.org.

Founded in 1994, Portland Taiko was the first professional taiko (Japanese drum performance) ensemble in the Pacific Northwest. They have been a strong artistic presence in Portland and beyond for eighteen years. Portland Taiko pushes the boundaries of taiko expression by integrating contemporary sound, modern and folkdance movement, and world music with traditional taiko rhythms. Artistic Director Michelle Fujii and Managing Director Robin Mullins lead the company which performs for over 50,000 people locally and nationally in concerts, community performances, and tour engagements each year. Portland Taiko also offers studio classes, school programs, and community educational work to students of all ages.

Dmae Roberts welcomes writer Judith Arcana to share her work-in-progress poetry collection called the Maude Poems. (Judith Arcana, left. Photo by Barbara Gundle) Arcana's newest published collection, The Parachute Jump Effect, is a chapbook of poems. Her other books include Grace Paley's Life Stories, 4th Period English and Every Mother's Son. Find out more about her writing at JudithArcana.com.

A longtime teacher of literature, writing and women’s studies, Arcana has a PhD in Literature, an MA in Women's Studies, an Urban Preceptorship in Preventive Medicine and a BA in English. She’s taught in high schools, colleges, libraries, living rooms and other places, including the Parents School, Women’s Liberation School, Illinois State Women’s Reformatory and Washington County Jail in Oregon.

Excerpt of "We Understand That Sky

We understand that sky has no color, really

all that blue is an effect, reflection, illusion.

And it’s like that with water too, isn’t it?

Water’s clear and empty, then light

rushes through, making purple, gold and green

black or blue – like the sky seems to be –

reflect inside our eyes.

Readings:

September 19th at 7pm - reading from new work in progress - the Maude poems, a project supported by a grant from RACC at St Johns Booksellers. 8622 N Lombard in Portland.

September 20th at 7pm - reading from THE PARACHUTE JUMP EFFECT and other recent workWriting Pearls at Pop Culture, 1929 Main St.in Vancouver, Washington.

A special look at Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Party People written by Mildred Ruiz-Sapp, Steven Sapp and William Ruiz, a.k.a. Ninja of Universes. Party People documents an historic time when the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords worked together to make revolutionary social change during the turmoil of the 60s and 70s in America. Dmae Roberts talked with the writers, performers and founders of the innovative theatre group Universeswho blend hip hop, dance, poetry into high performance theatre.

Dmae finds out how the founders of Universes met at Bard College and started working in poetry clubs before becoming a theatre group. They talk about their unique style of theatre and the process of creating the play as well as the legacy of the Black Panters and Young Lords in their own neighborhoods. __________________________________________________________

There are few times in theatre where you can witness a new genre coming alive before your eyes. Party People is one of those times. Commissioned in 2009 for American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle, Universes spent three years working on this project and interviewed more than 20 of the veterans of the Black Panthers and the Young Lords, whose social movements during that period left a complicated legacy.

Party People makes for an unflinching look from a variety of perspectives both the heroic efforts of party members to enact social programs to help the impoverished in their communities and the violence that erupted throughout the tumultuous period during the civil rights era. The play begins with an epic musical number infused with power and passion with Universes' Mildred Ruiz-Sapp's stunning vocals and the charged poetry of Steven Sapp and William Ruiz.

Part collage, poetry, live concert with dazzling light shows and video montages, Party People is grounded by a solid story line. The main action takes place in an art installation about the very history the play examines. As young artists go through tech rehearsals for the art opening, Black Panther and Young Lords members who were interviewed for the 'show' recall their memories and come to grips with their past. In this artshow within an artshow, Party People is an amazing internal look at this time period as well as the responsibilities of artists when creating art based on real people and history.

The dramatic turning point for the play comes when the veterans of political change interact with each other at the art installation. Secrets are revealed and old wounds open up again as they face friends, allies and deep-seated conflicts. The stellar OSF cast led by Universes offers OSF actors a chance to play cultural roles that expand their versatility. It's novel to hear passionate singing and see hip hop moves by actors with strong classical training.

Party People defies genre and categorization. All one needs to know is that something electric and monumental came alive when OSF and Universes staged this play. There is so much potential for the play to tour in other parts of the country so this important and often overlooked time period isn't forgotten nor the lives that shaped it.

Party People runs through November 3rd in OSF's New Theatre and is directed by Liesl Tommy, who last directed the critically acclaimed play Ruined at OSF in 2010. For more info or tickets visit:OSFAshland.org. Or call 541-482-4331 or 800-219-8161._________________________________________________________

Background from OSF: "The Black Panther Party was a revolutionary leftist African-American organization active from 1966 to 1982 and was founded on the principles outlined in their Ten-Point Program: “Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice and Peace.” They instituted a number of social programs to alleviate poverty and improve health among inner city black communities.

Likewise, the Young Lords, a Puerto Rican nationalist group founded as a human rights movement in 1968, championed health care, education and tenants’ rights for Latinos. J. Edgar Hoover saw the organized activity of these groups as a threat to the nation’s internal security, and had them and other revolutionary movements infiltrated by his FBI Counterintelligence Program. These agents escalated the growing distrust and violence in the parties, and in time, the community and political achievements of the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords have been overshadowed by the often confrontational and militant tactics."

UNIVERSES spent months traveling the country speaking with members of the two organizations and listening to their recollections, inspiring a theatrical re-imagining of this significant period in American history. The interweaving of the stories moves us to reconsider these movements, the impetus for their formation, and work toward a better future for all Americans."

Dmae Roberts features Classical Revolution PDX presenting the Lyrical Strings Duo CD Release. We'll talk with Lucia Conrad and Stephen Osserman about their new CD and get a live concert.

Portland-based Lyrical Strings Duo (Lucia Conrad on violin and Stephen Osserman on classical guitar) perform works from their debut album Evening Songs. Their CD features a variety of 19th and 20 century music including Chopin, Mendelssohn, Faure, Ponce and Kreisler. Their show also presents acclaimed cellist/singer Ashia Grzesik to open the evening.

They perform two beautiful songs live! More highlights from the show:

They both find Portland's indy music scene to allow them outside the box music opportunities...

Stephen: "Not a lot venues and space for those kind of activities back east but here now...it seems like every week there's a new interesting opportunity coming up."

Lucia's biggest challenge was to learn to improvise: "Because we are glued to the page. This is how we were trained. Since I was five, I've had a page in front of me."

Lucia's advice to young musicians: "Be professional. This is a small community and people will know if you're not being professional especially young people. Be serious about your art."

Listen this live concert and interview as they push the envelope in Classical music!

Lucia and Stephen met through Classical Revolution PDX. In 2010 they formed the Lyrical Strings Duo, and they’ve been taking their music to the churches, parks, halls, and living rooms of the Northwest ever since. Lucia was born and raised in Czech Republic and is a graduate of the Prague Conservatory. She has appeared in both the United States and Europe as a soloist and chamber musician. Now based in Portland, she is the Concertmaster of the Willamette Falls Symphony, Assistant Concertmaster of the Salem Chamber Orchestra and the first violinist in many other regional orchestras and chamber groups.

For over a decade, Stephen has worked to take classical guitar to new places. As a student at the Yale School of Music – where he earned a Masters of Music in Guitar Performance – he collaborated with a wide array of artists, combining traditional guitar repertoire with dance, poetry, and theater. Recently he has focused on arranging Romantic Era works for the duo, many of which they plan to publish in 2013.

Evening Songs includes many of these arrangements. With a foundation of three Chopin Nocturnes, the album is a dark fantasia that weaves together a set of Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words, Ponce’s Mexican folk-inspired Estrellita, Kreisler’s nostalgic gypsy-infused La Gitana, introspective works by Satie, and more.

About Classical Revolution PDX

Classical Revolution PDX, a non-profit organization founded in 2007, has grown to a network of over two hundred musicians with a shared desire to make classical music a part of people's daily lives and chamber music a vibrant part of Portland’s artistic community.

Dmae Roberts talks with screenwriter and director Alan Greenberg. He’s written a new memoir titled Every Night the Trees Disappear: Werner Herzog and the Making of ‘Heart of Glass‘about his collaboration with Wernor Herzog.

Heart of Glass, Herzog’s 1976 film, has been described as one of the strangest narrative films in history in which Herzog hypnotized all the actors. The film has also been hailed as an early Herzog masterpiece. Without a doubt the filming was an adventure and challenged the way many films have been done since.

Greenberg, a journalist at the time, was 26 when he was invited to work with Herzog on Heart of Glass. He travelled throughout Europe with Herzog scouting locations and taking part in the filming, oftentimes in great physical danger.Set in 18th century Bavaria in a glass blowing factory, the film features breathtaking landscapes and actors who appear to moving and talking in a trance-like state.

More than 30 years later, Greenberg intercuts personal narrative with pages from the screenplay to make a fascinating look into the creative process of a young genius called Werner Herzog.

Greenberg talks about Every Night the Trees Disappear but also shares his journey as a screenwriter who has worked on screenplays including Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear and Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1900.

We also find out about Greenberg’s newest published screenplay, Love in Vain,about the blues artist Robert Johnson that’s being made into a film after 30 years. Join us for this engaging talk with a master writer.

Hear about the history of one of Portland's oldest neighborhoods, Goose Hollow, just outside of downtown. Dmae Roberts talks with author Tracy J. Prince, Ph.D who has researched Goose Hollow's history in a new book filled with vintage photos. From forest to farmland to stadiums and schools, the story of Goose Hollow's development is a dramatic evolution. Learn the backstory of how it got its name and hear about all the famous residents and visitors.

With more than 200 archival photos , Portland’s Goose Hollow. Prince provides answers on the origin of the Goose Hollow name, how Tanner Creek Gulch was filled and has created a revealing historical look at an area that's often forgotten and disregarded.

More about the author: Tracy J. Prince, Ph.D. lives in Goose Hollow and is a Scholar-in-Residence at Portland State University's Portland Center for Public Humanities. By interviewing numerous Portland families and conducting archival research at the Oregonian, City of Portland, and the Oregon Historical Society, Prince uncovered the little-known history of this charming neighborhood.

Prince first started researching the history of her neighborhood in 2009, when she was designing flags for the neighborhood and wanted to put a date of establishment on the flag.

She had so much fun digging around in her neighborhood's history and felt that so much of it was completely unknown to Portland that she decided to keep researching.

She reports that she had a wonderful time exploring in archives, meeting postcard and antique photo collectors, and talking to old folks about the good ol' days

Portland’s Goose Hollow is available at area bookstores, independent retailers, and online retailers, or through Arcadia Publishing at (888)-313-2665 or www.arcadiapublishing.com.

More summer Shakespeare coverage with Portland Shakespeare Project'sSeason of Lear shows. Dmae talks with artistic director Michael Mendelson and playwright C.S. Whitcomb about their collaboration of a new Lear adaptation to run in repertory with Shakespeare's King Lear.

This second season of Portland Shakespeare Project features the new play Lear's Follies written by award winning Oregon playwright C.S. Whitcomb directed by Mendelson. Artists Repertory Theatre director Jon Kretzu directs a new staging of King Lear performed by a cast of six actors.

Portland Shakespeare Project was formed by Michael Mendelson and Karen Rathje to bring high quality and innovative interpretations of both classic works of theatre and modern works associated with classical material to Portland audiences. Last year, more than 1,700 people enjoyed PSP's entertaining and innovative production of William Shakespeare's As You Like It.

Lear's Follies runs July 11 - August 5. King Lear runs July 18 - August 4. Both shows run in rotating repertory at Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison Street, Portland, Oregon, through August 5.

Set in a Virginia tobacco empire family in 1929, Whitcomb's modern adaption of Lear's Follies explores issues of pride, greed, friendship, devotion and the choices people make in their lives that keep them shackled emotionally to their past.

Shakespeare's famed tragedy King Lear, directed by Jon Kretzu, features six actors: Tim Blough as King Lear, Dainichia Noreault as Cordelia, Dana Millican as Regan, Allison Tigard as Goneril, Grant Byington as Gloucester, and Matt Kerrigan as Edgar.

Performance times for both shows are Wednesdays through Fridays at 7:30 pm, Saturdays at 2:00 pm and 7:30 pm, and Sundays at 2:00 pm. All performances are on the Morrison Stage at Artists Repertory Theatre located at 1515 SW Morrison Street, Portland. Single ticket prices are $30 for adult tickets and $18 for student tickets. Adult ticket prices for both shows, when purchased at the same time, are $50.

Tour England with Dmae on Tues 11am at KBOO 90.7fm. Hear sounds and stories from Cornwall with the Fisherman's Friends singing group in the village of Port Isaac as well as a soundscape of the maritime town of Greenwich and an historic social engagement place in Hyde Park in London, England. An international edition of Stage & Studio!

First up, hear about a tradition of open public speaking and debate in Hyde Park in London.

Since 1872, Londoners can lawfully make speeches on Sunday to anyone who will listen. Speaker's Corner is a tradition that still lives on encouraging public discourse and spirited social engagement.

Dmae walked around the park and recorded different speakers in May. Hear the original social media hub at Speaker's Corner.

Next, we'll hear a Lloyd Edmonds tell his story. He's a street musician who plays at Marble Arch at the entrance of Hyde Park.

Edmonds loves the blues and plays his guitar for passers-by. He tells us how the 2012 Olympics in London is making it difficult for street musicians.

Then we go to Greenwich, England steeped in maritime history. The town once housed the royal palace but after a civil war, it fell into disrepair so the palace was rebuilt as the Royal Naval Hospital for Sailors. It's also the home of the Trinity College of Music.

Dmae took a walk through the courtyard in the middle of all the rehearsal rooms and created a sound piece.

Finally we travel to Port Isaac, Cornwall where the PBS show Doc Martin is filmed. There we meet the Fisherman's Friends, a group of 10 men who grew up together in the same little village.

For more than 15, the Fisherman’s Friends have been singing sea shanties as a group in Port Isaac, Cornwall (pictured, top left)

During the summer, the ten men give free concerts in the old harbor drawing crowds of 3000 or more.

The picturesque village has been highlighted in films and TV shows—mostly recently the popular Doc Martin series. But the Fisherman’s Friends with their masterful harmonies and lively performances remain the heart of local culture.

They started singing sea chanties and Christmas carols to raise money for charity but soon became so popular they got a major recording contract and now have a busy touring schedule.

Dmae talked with them at their 'headquarters' at the Golden Lion Pub in Port Isaac about what makes their style of singing unusual.

This story originally aired nationally.

And as an audio "extra" we hear from the Fisherman's Friends about their love of the Cornish language and how it's in danger of being forgotten.

You can hear it here on PRI"s The World and see a slideshow of photos by Richard Jensen.

Coho Productions is going solo this summer with four one-person shows. Dmae Roberts features two of the shows and performers, Stacey Hallal in the comedic Irregardless and Elizabeth Huffman in the moving You Belong To Me.

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Stacey Hallal (featured left photo) in Irregardless combines stand up, songs and storytelling exploring topics like marriage, robots, grammar, sex and tatoos. Her presentation and perspective are fresh, but what makes her funniest is that she hits a common chord that resonates with the audience not only in the moment, but also well beyond the end of the show.

Hallal trained at the famed Second City in Chicago and founded Curious Comedy Theater in Portland. Bob Hicks of the Oregonian says, "Comic actress Stacey Hallal has a face that can rise like a puff pastry or fall like a mob informer with an anvil tied 'round his feet. Her eyes can pop like a Looney Toons critter's, and she can stretch a grin as crazy-wide as Jack Nicholson's in "The Shining." Her voice has the same cockeyed flexibility, and she uses both to highly amusing effect...in other words, she's a genuine talent."

Elizabeth Huffman performs in You Belong To Me by Steven Wolfson. The play is about several women on the precipice of monumental personal change. Two of the women Huffman plays are: The Actress who struggles to hold onto her sanity when her life is ravaged by divorce and addiction and Aspasia, a high-priced courtesan who shares the bed of ancient Greece's most powerful politician, seeks to influence the destiny of her country and its women.

Though separated by two thousand years, these women are inexorably linked by their unyielding passion for Euripedes’ Greek tragedy, The Trojan Women. The Actress re-imagines the play nightly and inhabits its characters as a way of understanding her unraveling life...while Aspasia, present during the play's creation, inspires Euripides to dig deeper into the psyches of his war-ravaged characters even as a war in their own time rages all around them.

Since this is a work-in-progress, audiences will find something new in each performance as Huffman and the playwright Steven Wolfson find new words and characters as they work together.

You Belong To Me explores such timeless themes as democracy, gender politics, marriage, desire and whether our own personal and political histories are linear or unbroken circles, forever dooming us to repeat the same mistakes